Search results matching tag 'cloud computing'http://sqlblog.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?o=DateDescending&tag=cloud+computing&orTags=0Search results matching tag 'cloud computing'en-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP2 (Build: 61129.1)Azure Automation – the beginning of cloud ETL on Azure?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2014/04/24/azure-automation-the-beginning-of-cloud-etl-on-azure.aspxThu, 24 Apr 2014 11:42:22 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:53717jamiet<p>I have maintained a watching brief on what I refer to as “cloud ETL”, that is the ability build ETL routines in a cloud environment and therefore leverage all the benefits that the cloud model brings*. Thus far my main opinion piece in this area is <a title="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2013/02/12/what-would-a-cloud-based-etl-tool-look-like.aspx" href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2013/02/12/what-would-a-cloud-based-etl-tool-look-like.aspx" target="_blank">What would a cloud-based ETL tool look like?</a> in which I laid out what features I thought a cloud ETL tool should have:</p> <ul> <li><em>Data transformation would be done “in the cloud” i.e. I wouldn’t need to own my own hardware in order to run it </em></li> <li><em>Ability to consume data from/push data to &lt;many different data protocols&gt;</em> </li> <li><em>Adapters (possibly with a plug-in model) for cloud storage and API providers</em> </li> <li><em>Job scheduler </em></li> <li><em>Workflow. (e.g. Do this, then do that. Do these things in parallel. Only do this if some condition is true. Restart from here in case of failure.) </em></li> <li><em>An </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment"><em>IDE</em></a><em> (open to debate whether the IDE should be “in the cloud” as well) </em></li> <li><em>Ability to carry out common transformations (join, aggregate, sort, </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_(relational_algebra)"><em>projection</em></a><em>) on those heterogeneous data sources </em></li> <li><em>Ability to authenticate using different authentication mechanisms </em></li> <li><em>Configurable logging </em></li> <li><em>Ability to publish transformed data in a manner that makes it consumable rather than insert it into another data store</em></li> </ul> <blockquote> <p><a title="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2013/02/12/what-would-a-cloud-based-etl-tool-look-like.aspx" href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2013/02/12/what-would-a-cloud-based-etl-tool-look-like.aspx"><em>http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2013/02/12/what-would-a-cloud-based-etl-tool-look-like.aspx</em></a></p> </blockquote> <p>Given that I have spent the majority of my career working with Microsoft technologies (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/tags/ssis/default.aspx" target="_blank">in particular their ETL tool, SSIS</a>) I am interested to know whether Microsoft will offer a cloud ETL tool. With that in mind I was interested to discover a new service on Azure that is currently in preview called Azure Automation (read <a title="http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2014/04/03/announcing-microsoft-azure-automation-preview.aspx" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2014/04/03/announcing-microsoft-azure-automation-preview.aspx" target="_blank">Announcing Microsoft Azure Automation Preview</a>). Azure Automation is essentially a a cloud-based workflow tool and, as I said above, workflow is a feature that I believe a cloud-based ETL tool should encompass:</p> <ul> <li><em>Workflow. (e.g. Do this, then do that. Do these things in parallel. Only do this if some condition is true. Restart from here in case of failure.) </em></li> </ul> <p>SSIS developers will of course be aware that SSIS has its own workflow tool (termed the <strong>Control Flow</strong>). It always kind of bugged me that different Microsoft tools had their own workflow technology. SSIS had one, I believe BizTalk had one, there was another called Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) and in fact there was a possibility within the SQL Server 2008 timeframe that SSIS would replace its Control Flow with WWF (that never happened and the Program Manager that wanted to do it has since left the SSIS product team).</p> <p>Azure Automation is built upon <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2012/12/26/powershell-workflows-the-basics.aspx" target="_blank">Powershell Workflow</a> which in turn is built upon WWF (now simply called Workflow Foundation – WF). It certainly seems as though WF is becoming the foundational workflow technology to rule them all within Microsoft and that is no bad thing in my opinion – it seems foolish to reinvent the wheel every time. Powershell Workflow has the following cmdlets for building workflows:</p> <ul> <li>Workflow </li> <li>Parallel </li> <li>Foreach –parallel </li> <li>Sequence </li> <li>InlineScript </li> <li>Checkpoint-workflow </li> <li>Suspend-workflow</li> </ul> <p>Those are all fairly self-explanatory. Of particular interest to me is <strong><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj713711.aspx" target="_blank">Foreach –parallel</a></strong> (we’ve been <a href="https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/544304/ssis-parallel-foreach-loop" target="_blank">asking for a native Parallel ForEach Loop in SSIS for years</a>) and that might be even more useful in a scale-out infrastructure such as can be offered by the cloud (imagine firing off multiple FTP tasks in parallel, all working on different Azure nodes). <strong><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574114.aspx" target="_blank">Checkpoint-Workflow</a></strong> also sounds very interesting:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>A checkpoint is a snapshot of the current state of the workflow, including the current values of variables, and any output generated up to that point, and it saves it to disk. You can add multiple checkpoints to a workflow by using different checkpoint techniques. Windows PowerShell automatically uses the data in newest checkpoint for the workflow to recover and resume the workflow if the workflow is interrupted, intentionally or unintentionally. <br /><a title="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574114.aspx" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574114.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574114.aspx</a></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Stateful restartability that you can control, all out-of-the-box. How cool is that? So much better than <a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2011/03/10/why-i-don-t-use-ssis-checkpoint-files.aspx" target="_blank">the awful checkpointing feature within SSIS</a>.</p> <p>It certainly appears to me that Azure Automation could satisfy my desire for a workflow engine for the purposes of cloud-ETL. Now if only Microsoft were working on cloud-based dataflows too we’d have something akin to SSIS-in-the-cloud <img class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-winkingsmile" style="border-top-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none;" alt="Winking smile" src="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/wlEmoticon-winkingsmile_1DEF9BCE.png" />.</p> <p><a href="http://twitter.com/jamiet" target="_blank">@Jamiet</a></p> <p>*My own personal opinion is that the benefits of the cloud model can be summed up simply as “OPEX not CAPEX”. You may have your own definition, and that’s OK.</p>New Windows and SQL Azure Resources for the IT Prohttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/09/17/new-windows-and-sql-azure-resources-for-the-it-pro.aspxTue, 17 Sep 2013 14:28:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:51017KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Here's a new <a mce_href="http://kevinekline.com/2013/09/17/new-windows-and-sql-azure-resources-for-the-it-pro/" href="http://kevinekline.com/2013/09/17/new-windows-and-sql-azure-resources-for-the-it-pro/">post from my website</a>, with many thanks to Microsoft DPE for the Central Region, Keith Mayer (<a mce_href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/" style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/">blog&nbsp;</a><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">|&nbsp;</span><a mce_href="http://twitter.com/KeithMayer" style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;" href="http://twitter.com/KeithMayer">twitter</a><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">), for these great tips!</span>
</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">
<li><strong>Windows 8.1 RTM</strong>&nbsp;and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM bits available on MSDN and TechNet subscription sites. This is the version I'm waiting for since it fully preserves the Start menu.
<ul>
<li>Note that updates are expected between RTM, now, and GA, October 18th. &nbsp;Be sure to check Windows Updates 2-to-3 times weekly if installing these bits. &nbsp;I'm not saying they're unstable. But they are definitely changed frequently as the dev team makes final tuning and tweaking changes.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>New Virtual Labs</strong>&nbsp;on Windows Server 2012 R2 and R2 Essentials:
<ul>
<li><a mce_href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>TechNet Eval Center</strong>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<em>Don't forget that TechNet has been sunsetted and has only 90 days or so left before you'll need to switch to MSDN for product bits.</em>
<ul>
<li>Currently, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010 have been added with more expected in coming weeks:&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn407368" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn407368">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn407368</a></li>
<li>Here's an interesting new development - Microsoft has caught wind that many of us have to frequently install&nbsp;<em>older&nbsp;</em>versions of the bits. &nbsp;For example, it's not uncommon for a DBA to need to install SQL Server 2005. &nbsp;You'll now be able to get those bits from your TechNet/MSDN subscriptions under their "Previous Products" area.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Windows Azure Updates</strong>:
<ul>
<li>Scheduled Auto-Scaling of VM’s, WebSites and Cloud Services</li>
<li>Automated SQL Database exporting to Storage Account</li>
<li>SQL Database Premium Tier offers reserved capacity</li>
<li>Here's a great blog (<a mce_href="http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu" style="line-height:19px;" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu">http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu</a><span style="line-height:19px;">)&nbsp;</span>to stay on top of when SQL Server is your primary cloud focus. &nbsp;New features in this release include SQL Server Always On Clusters Supported on Windows Azure – High Availability, Disaster Recovery, Read-Only Secondaries for Offloaded BI.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IE 11 Release Preview for Windows 7 releasing later this week – W3C Resource Prioririties, GPU acceleration, WebGL, ECMAScript 6, new “F12” Developer Tools.&nbsp;<span style="line-height:19px;">Look for details on the IE Blog (&nbsp;</span><a mce_href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/" style="line-height:19px;" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/</a><span style="line-height:19px;">&nbsp;) later this week.</span></li>
<li>There's a new&nbsp;<strong>App Studio for Windows Phone</strong>&nbsp;that's entirely web-based. &nbsp;Wow! No real coding and it's all done on-line. It's for Windows Phone Apps from Browser-based App Templates / Submit enabling you to directly upload them to the Windows Phone store. &nbsp;Get involved with the program at&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://apps.windowsstore.com/ApplicationTemplate/Template" style="line-height:19px;" href="http://apps.windowsstore.com/ApplicationTemplate/Template">http://apps.windowsstore.com</a><span style="line-height:19px;">. &nbsp;There's also a cool looking App Builder Rewards program where you get points towards prizes for getting involved with the program:&nbsp;<a mce_href="https://build.windowsstore.com/rewards/" href="https://build.windowsstore.com/rewards/">https://build.windowsstore.com/rewards/</a>.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li>Trade-in your iPad, Get $200 towards a Microsoft Surface:&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://content.microsoftstore.com/en-us/offers" style="line-height:19px;" href="http://content.microsoftstore.com/en-us/offers">http://content.microsoftstore.com/en-us/offers</a>. &nbsp;Might be useful if you have an older iPad that's just collecting dust.</li>
<li><b style="line-height:19px;">“Early Experts” for Windows Server 2012 R2:</b></li>
<ul style="line-height:19px;">
<li>New wave of “Early Experts” study group targeting new features in Windows Server 2012 R2</li>
<li>Scenario-based, but also mapping to new R2 certification exam objectives</li>
<li>First online meetings beginning in October – 3<sup>rd</sup>&nbsp;Thursdays from 6:30PM-8:30PM</li>
<li>Launching this month at&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://aka.ms/EarlyExpertsR2" href="http://aka.ms/EarlyExpertsR2">http://aka.ms/EarlyExpertsR2</a>&nbsp;with&nbsp;<em><strong>FREE EBOOK</strong></em>&nbsp;offer. (A $10 value on the online bookstores).</li>
<li><b>New Online Step-by-Step Lab Guides</b></li>
<ul>
<li>Step-by-Step:&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/09/13/step-by-step-build-an-automated-storage-tiers-lab-with-windows-server-2012-r2-and-powershell.aspx" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/09/13/step-by-step-build-an-automated-storage-tiers-lab-with-windows-server-2012-r2-and-powershell.aspx">Build an Automated Tiered Storage Lab with Windows Server 2012 R2 &amp; PowerShell</a></li>
<li>Step-by-Step:&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/09/04/step-by-step-remote-desktop-services-on-windows-azure-a-cost-effective-alternative-to-desktop-as-a-service-part-2.aspx" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/09/04/step-by-step-remote-desktop-services-on-windows-azure-a-cost-effective-alternative-to-desktop-as-a-service-part-2.aspx">Build Remote Desktop Session Virtualization on Windows Azure</a></li>
<li>Full list of Step-by-Step Lab Guides at&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://aka.ms/CloudLab" href="http://aka.ms/CloudLab">http://aka.ms/CloudLab</a></li>
<li><b>Upcoming Events: Windows Azure IT Camps</b></li>
<ul>
<li>FREE Full-day, Hands-on Events</li>
<li>Storage, Virtual Networks, Virtual Machines in the Cloud</li>
<li>Hands-On: Build a Dev/Test Lab on Windows Azure</li>
<li><span>Dates across the USA:&nbsp;</span><a mce_href="http://technetevents.com/azureitcamps/" href="http://technetevents.com/azureitcamps/">http://technetevents.com/azureitcamps/</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Let me know if this info is valuable. &nbsp;Many thanks,</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">-Kevin</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a mce_href="http://twitter.com/kekline" href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a mce_href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author" href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p>Now Playing on SSWUG TV!http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/09/10/now-playing-on-sswug-tv.aspxTue, 10 Sep 2013 17:45:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50939KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Hi friends,</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">I know a lot of you regularly read my blog either on my home page at&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://KevinEKline.com" href="http://KevinEKline.com">KevinEKline.com</a>, on&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/default.aspx" href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/default.aspx">SQLBlog.com</a>, or one of the locations where it's syndicated. And you may also regularly take in my content on&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://sqlsentry.tv" href="http://sqlsentry.tv">SQLSentry.TV</a>&nbsp;or my monthly column on&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://www.dbta.com/Articles/MoreNews.aspx?ContextID=329" href="http://www.dbta.com/Articles/MoreNews.aspx?ContextID=329"><i>Database Trends &amp; Applications&nbsp;</i>magazine</a>.</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a mce_href="http://www.sswug.org/pro/playerpage.aspx?id=2704" href="http://www.sswug.org/pro/playerpage.aspx?id=2704"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5740" alt="KevinEKline.com on SSWUG.org" width="300" height="153" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SSWUG-03-300x153.jpg"></a></p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;text-align:center;"><i><b>Click the image</b>&nbsp;<b>to see my new weekly video series on SSWUG.org!</b></i></p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Now I'm adding a new video format to the mix, in partnership with my friend Steven Wynkoop and&nbsp;<a mce_href="http://www.sswug.org/pro/playerpage.aspx?id=2704" href="http://www.sswug.org/pro/playerpage.aspx?id=2704">SSWUG.org</a>. &nbsp;I've been a frequent speaker in the SSWUG virtual conferences over the past several years and, we thought, why not make this a more frequent occurrence than twice per year?</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">For the next several episodes, I'll be discussing new features that will be released in SQL Server 2014. &nbsp;However, I'd love to make it interactive. &nbsp;So if you have any topics that are keenly interesting to you which are part of my regular repertoire (SQL Server, SQL, other database platforms like Oracle, database design, enterprise architecture, cloud computing, professional development, and leading IT teams), then please drop me a note. I'd love to hear from you.</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">-Kevin</p>
<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a mce_href="http://KevinEKline.com" href="http://KevinEKline.com">-Read more content at KevinEKline.com</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a mce_href="http://KevinEKline.com" href="http://KevinEKline.com"></a><a mce_href="http://twitter.com/kekline" style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;" href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a mce_href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author" href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p>Windows Azure and SQL Database Newshttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/08/14/windows-azure-and-sql-database-news.aspxWed, 14 Aug 2013 16:04:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50468KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">This morning Microsoft released some great updates to Windows Azure.&nbsp; These new capabilities include:</p><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li><b>SQL Server AlwaysOn Support:&nbsp;</b>General Availability support with Windows Azure Virtual Machines for High Availability and Disaster Recovery</li><li><b>Notification Hubs:</b>&nbsp;General Availability Release of Windows Azure Notification Hubs (broadcast push notifications for Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS and Android)</li><li><b>AutoScale</b>: Schedule-based AutoScale rules and richer logging support</li><li><b>Virtual Machines</b>: Load Balancer Configuration and Management</li><li><b>Management Services</b>: New Portal Extension for Operation logs + Alerts</li></ul><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Scott Guthrie has a blog post with more details about updates and new features here:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/08/12/windows-azure-general-availability-of-sql-server-always-on-support-and-notification-hubs-autoscale-improvements-more.aspx">http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/08/12/windows-azure-general-availability-of-sql-server-always-on-support-and-notification-hubs-autoscale-improvements-more.aspx</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">On a related note, if you use Windows Azure VMs running SQL Server, take a look at this MSDN topic: &nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn133143.aspx">Backup and Restore for SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines</a>. &nbsp;Finally, Windows Azure offers backup capabilities not only in the cloud but also on-premises, as described here (when the SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 or later versions), enabling users to backup directly to a blob using Windows Azure Storage Services:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj919148.aspx">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj919148.aspx</a>.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;-Kevin</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p>Videos and Training on Windows Azure IaaS from TechEd New Orleanshttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/buck_woody/archive/2013/07/10/videos-and-training-on-windows-azure-iaas-from-teched-new-orleans.aspxWed, 10 Jul 2013 17:19:19 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50021BuckWoody<p><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900448284.jpg"><img style="float:right;max-width:550px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900448284.jpg" alt="" width="181" height="173" border="0" /></a>&nbsp;I&rsquo;m catching up on a bunch of features, functions, updates and more learning from the TechEd Event in New Orleans recently. In fact, videos, Windows Azure documentation, and of course blogs are the new way to keep up &ndash; books are just too slow to produce to handle the pace. I thought I&rsquo;d share the links I&rsquo;m using:</p>
<h1>General IaaS</h1>
<p>Best Practices from Real Customers: Deploying to Windows Azure Infrastructure Services (IaaS)<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B361#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B361#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a> <br />&nbsp;<br />Building Your Lab, Dev, and Test Scenarios in Windows Azure Infrastucture Services (IaaS)<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B370#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B370#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a> <br />&nbsp;<br />Infrastructure Services on Windows Azure: Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks with Mark Russinovich<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B212#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B212#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a></p>
<p>Windows Azure Internals<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B402#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B402#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a></p>
<p>Getting the Most out of Windows Azure Storage<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B406#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B406#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a></p>
<h1>Network and Connectivity, Hybrid and DR</h1>
<p>Hybrid Networking Offerings in Windows Azure<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B360#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B360#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a></p>
<p>Achieve High Availability with Microsoft SQL Server on Windows Azure Virtual Machines<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B406#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B406#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a>&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />Designing and Building Disaster Recovery Enabled Solutions in Windows Azure<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B403#fbid=HXConkFs07x">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B403#fbid=HXConkFs07x</a> </p>
<h1>Specific Applications (SQL Server and SharePoint)</h1>
<p>IaaS: Hosting a Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Farm on Windows Azure<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B213#fbid=fZr-ePS5tK">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B213#fbid=fZr-ePS5tK</a>- <br />&nbsp;<br />Performance Tuning Microsoft SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines<br /><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DBI-B311#fbid=HXConkFs07">http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DBI-B311#fbid=HXConkFs07</a></p>MySQL, NoSQL, and NuoDBhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/07/08/mysql-nosql-and-nuodb.aspxMon, 08 Jul 2013 16:45:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:49998KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><span style="line-height:19px;">I've been keen on MySQL ever since I first started using it heavily more than a decade ago. &nbsp;In fact, I liked it well enough to include it as one of the four main database platforms, over and above the ANSI-ISO SQL standard, in my popular book&nbsp;</span><a style="line-height:19px;" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596518846?tag=kevincom-20&amp;camp=213381&amp;creative=390973&amp;linkCode=as4&amp;creativeASIN=0596518846&amp;adid=0MWG8DB4NGF82DEYC9PN&amp;&amp;ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkevinekline.com%2Fbibliography%2F"><em>SQL in a Nutshell</em></a><span style="line-height:19px;">.&nbsp;However, with the advent of NoSQL data platforms in the last few years, the waters have been muddied. &nbsp;It's no longer a quick easy decision as to which database platform you should use, both because there are many new platforms to choose from and because the old, easy choices aren't as cut and dried as they used to be. &nbsp;MySQL, for example, is now owned by Oracle which definitely complicates the decision, at least in terms of the mainstream commercial versions of that product, while the brain-trust that started MySQL has gone on to the alternative database platform called MariaDB.</span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><span style="line-height:19px;"><a href="http://www.nuodb.com/"><img class="alignright" width="142" height="90" style="border:0px;cursor:default;float:right;" src="http://www.nuodb.com/themes/nuodb/img/nuo_logo.jpg"></a></span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><span style="line-height:19px;">Rather than dive straight into the alternative next-gen of MySQL, I decided to investigate more powerful alternatives that offer more of the benefits of NoSQL and cloud-centric databases. &nbsp;That's when I landed on NuoDB. &nbsp;It’s has been generally available for a few months now as a straight database platform. &nbsp;It didn’t have any real Microsoft-oriented features until recently.&nbsp; Then last month the company announced a bunch of Microsoft enhancements, many which are great for developers, so I downloaded it. &nbsp;(You might have seen my tweets from that time when I first started to check it out).</span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">From their website:</p><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li>64 bit support for Windows Server, Windows 7 and 8 for high performance<span style="line-height:19px;"><br></span></li></ul><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li>Full support for Visual Studio 2012, LINQ and Entity Framework for a more integrated developer experience<span style="line-height:19px;"><br></span></li></ul><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li>.NET driver to avoid&nbsp;<a href="http://jasonhall.blogs.sqlsentry.net/2012/08/my-perspective-top-5-most-common-sql.html">common scalability and performance issues</a>&nbsp;associated with traditional databases<span style="line-height:19px;"><br></span></li></ul><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li>Azure compatibility for running/deploying NuoDB easily in the cloud</li></ul><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Now it’s possible to build and deploy .NET applications using standard Microsoft tools and frameworks against a back-end that has built-in scale up elasticity. &nbsp;In other words, it gives you some of the best features of some of the NoSQL platforms while also giving you some of the best features of Azure. &nbsp;If you are interested in trying it out, there are 2 free version available for download&nbsp;<a href="http://go.nuodb.com/download-new-sql-database-kline.html">here</a>. &nbsp; And definitely let me know what you think. As you probably know, I'm not a hard-code .NET developer. &nbsp;So I'm interested in hearing from professional developers about its capabilities.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">I’ll write up some observations in future blogs.</p><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">And, as always, thanks!</div><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">-Kevin<br><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p>Cloud Computing Architecture Patterns: Don’t Focus on the Clienthttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/buck_woody/archive/2013/06/06/cloud-computing-architecture-patterns-don-t-focus-on-the-client.aspxThu, 06 Jun 2013 13:39:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:49475BuckWoody<p>Normally I try to put topics in the positive in other words "Do this" not "Don't do that". Sometimes its clearer to focus on what *not* to do. Popular development processes often start with screen mockups, or user input descriptions. In a scale-out pattern like Cloud Computing on Windows Azure, that's the wrong place to start.</p>
<h1>Start with the Data</h1>
<p><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900409031.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900409031.jpg" alt="" width="165" height="135" border="0" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp; Instead, I recommend that you start with the data that a process requires. That data might be temporary or persisted, but starting with the data and its requirements helps to define not only the storage engine you need but also drives everything from security to the integrity of the application. For instance, assume the requirements show that the user must enter their phone number, and that this datum is used in a contact management system further down the application chain. For that datum, you can determine what data type you need (U.S. only or International?) the security requirements, whether it needs ACID compliance, how it will be searched, indexed and so on. From one small data point you can extrapolate out your options for storing and processing the data.&nbsp;Here's the interesting part, which begins to break the patterns that we've used for decades: all of the data doesn't have the same requirements. The phone number might be best suited for a list, or an element, or a string, with either BASE or ACID requirements, based on how it is used. That means we don't have to dump everything into XML, an RDBMS, a NoSQL engine, or a flat file exclusively. In fact, one record might use all of those depending on the use-case requirements.</p>
<h1>Next Is Data Management</h1>
<h1 style="color:#000000;text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;font-size-adjust:none;font-stretch:normal;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;"><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900439323.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900439323.jpg" alt="" width="169" height="136" border="0" /></a>&nbsp;With the data defined, we can move on to how to store the data. Again, the requirements now dictate whether we need a full relational calculus or set-based operations, or we can choose another method based on the requirements for the data. And breaking another pattern its OK to store in more than once, in more than one location. We do this all the time for reporting systems and Business Intelligence systems, so this is a pattern we need to think about even for OLTP data.</h1>
<h1>Move to Data Transport</h1>
<p>How does the data get around? We can use a connection-based method, sending the data along a transport to the storage engine, but in some cases we may want to use a cache, a queue, the Service Bus, or Complex Event Processing.</p>
<h1>Finally, Data Processing</h1>
<p><br /><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900438759.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900438759.jpg" alt="" width="170" height="142" border="0" /></a>Most RDBMS engines, NoSQL, and certainly Big Data engines not only store data, but can process and manipulate it as well. Its doubtful that you'll calculate that phone number right? Well, if you're the phone company, you most certainly will. And so we see that even once we've chosen the data type, storage and engine, the same element can have different computing requirements based on how it is used.</p>
<h1>Sure, We Need A Front-End At Some Point</h1>
<p><a href="http://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/msintl/images/English/en-INTL_Surface_WinRT_64GB_7ZR-00002/en-INTL_L_Surface_WinRT_64GB_7ZR-00002_mnco.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;" src="http://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/msintl/images/English/en-INTL_Surface_WinRT_64GB_7ZR-00002/en-INTL_L_Surface_WinRT_64GB_7ZR-00002_mnco.jpg" alt="" width="247" height="157" border="0" /></a>Not all data is entered by human hands in fact most data isn't. We don't really need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) we need some way for a GUI to get data into and out of the systems listed earlier. &nbsp; <br /> <br />But when we do need to allow users to enter or examine data, that should be left to the GUI that best fits the device the user has. Ever tried to use an application designed for a web browser on a phone? Or one designed for a tablet on a phone? Its usually quite painful. The siren song of "We'll just write one interface for all devices" is strong, and has beguiled many an unsuspecting architect. But they just don't work out. &nbsp; <br /> <br />Instead, focus on the data, its transport and processing. Create API calls or a message system that allows for resilient transport to the device or interface, and let it do what it does best.</p>
<h1>References</h1>
<p>Microsoft Architecture Journal: &nbsp; <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx</a> <br />Patterns and Practices: &nbsp; <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx</a> <br />Windows Azure iOS, Android, Windows 8 Mobile Devices SDK: <a href="http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/">http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/</a> <br />Windows Azure Facebook SDK: <a href="http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/">http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/</a></p>Hear the SQL Server 2012 story on DotNetRockshttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/05/31/hear-the-sql-server-2012-story-on-dotnetrocks.aspxFri, 31 May 2013 15:32:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:49300KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=876"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-5682" alt="DotNetRocks" width="473" height="309" style="border:2px solid black;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DotNetRocks.jpg"></a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">I was privileged to have a chat with my buddies over at www.dotnetrocks.com, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, episode number 876 (876!). Listen to&nbsp;<a title="Kevin Kline Updates US on SQL Server DotNetRocks.com" href="http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=876">the most popular internet audio talk show for .NET developers!</a>&nbsp; Here's the abstract:</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;padding-left:30px;"><span><em>Carl and Richard talk to Kevin Kline about the latest features in SQL Server 2012. The conversation starts out talking about the new features that developers will love, like windowing - no need for cursors anymore, you can request a window of records from a set and move easily window-to-window. Kevin also talks about the new column store index that is especially useful with repeating data. There's also a discussion on the role of SQL Server in an increasingly NoSQL world, along with cool new technologies like Hadoop, Cassandra and Hekaton. Kevin closes with an offer of some free tools at SQL Sentry, including Plan Explorer, a tool to help you understand the query plans that SQL Server makes from your queries. Check it out!</em></span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Let me know what you think. &nbsp;Thanks,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">-Kevin</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">- Follow me on Twitter!</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">- Google Author</a></p>New On-Line Resources for Windows, Virtualization, and Cloud!http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/05/22/new-on-line-resources-for-windows-virtualization-and-cloud.aspxWed, 22 May 2013 19:29:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:49181KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Ever since returning from the UK for the SQLBits conference, I've been snowed under a mountain of action items. &nbsp;I've got such a backlog of things to get done, emails to answer, and family to not ignore that I'm starting to feel&nbsp;<em>really&nbsp;</em>guilty. &nbsp;</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">So with that in mind, I wanted to whip out a quick blog post to let you know I'm still alive and thinking of y'all. &nbsp;What could be quicker and easier than some cool new resources you might not have seen? &nbsp;For your perusal: &nbsp;</p><ul style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><li>Whitepaper: Managing Windows 7 and Windows 8 Side-by-Side<ul><li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37144">http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37144</a></li></ul></li><li>Poster: Networking in Virtual Machine Manager<ul><li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37137">http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37137</a></li></ul></li><li>Windows Server 2012: Core Network Companion Guide for Deploying IP Addressing in Branch Offices<ul><li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37034">http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37034</a></li></ul></li><li>Become a Virtualization Expert in 20 Days ( Blog Article Series )<ul><li><a href="http://aka.ms/VirtExpert">http://aka.ms/VirtExpert</a></li></ul></li><li>Build Your Private Cloud in a Month ( Blog Article Series )<ul><li><a href="http://aka.ms/BuildYourCloud">http://aka.ms/BuildYourCloud</a></li></ul></li><li><span style="line-height:19px;">Windows Server 2012 “Early Experts” FREE IT Pro Study Group</span><ul><li><a href="http://earlyexperts.net/">http://EarlyExperts.net</a></li></ul></li></ul><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Let me know what you think. &nbsp;Thanks,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">-Kevin</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">- Follow me on Twitter!</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">- Google Author</a></p>The “Consumerization” of IT and the Dark Side of the Cloudhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/buck_woody/archive/2013/04/30/the-consumerization-of-it-and-the-dark-side-of-the-cloud.aspxTue, 30 Apr 2013 13:33:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:48936BuckWoody<p>Cloud computing is actually being largely driven by the &ldquo;Consumerization of IT&rdquo;. That phrase, as grammatically incorrect as it is, represents a fundamental change to the way businesses think about technology, and subsequently how the IT team provides it.</p>
<p><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900400421.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;margin:5px;float:left;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900400421.jpg" alt="" width="139" height="139" /></a>Years ago, technology was introduced by the office. No one owned a mainframe at home of course, and even in the early years of PC&rsquo;s few people could afford to have them in their houses. Other than game consoles and hobbyists on small computers, most full-up &ldquo;PC&rsquo;s&rdquo; were used for &nbsp;work.&nbsp;</p>
<p>That rapidly changed, with the lowering of costs and miniaturization of technology. PC&rsquo;s and then laptops became ubiquitous in the home, and of course the &ldquo;smart phone&rdquo; ushered in an entire generation where the technology available to the consumer outpaced what is installed at the place of work. Many of us have laptops&nbsp; that are more powerful than some of the servers the company uses in some applications. <a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900439836.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;float:right;margin:5px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900439836.jpg" alt="" width="117" height="117" /></a></p>
<p>IT as a department grew up in the era of the &ldquo;office-first&rdquo; technology. Modern users, especially those controlling the budget, are now more &ldquo;home-first&rdquo; technology buyers. In extreme cases, I&rsquo;ve seen IT departments relegated to maintenance of legacy systems, with new IT projects being scoped, designed and run by business teams &ndash; usually on a Cloud Computing platform. The business wants to create a technical solution as quickly as they can download an app to their phone. They want the same level of speed and ease that they have on home technology in their business work.</p>
<p>However, this can be problematic if not thought through. As with any new technology, Cloud Computing provides both benefits and concerns. It&rsquo;s true that almost anyone can quickly stand up a server or deploy an application quickly with nothing more than an e-mail address and a credit card. But business teams are not always aware of areas such as security or similar concerns that the IT teams solved through many hours of careful planning. Unfortunately, it&rsquo;s often a matter of &ldquo;Ready, Fire, Aim.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So what is the business (who wants the agility of a smart phone and a single-click solution) to do? What about the need for security, strategic design, integration and all of the other functions that IT needs to handle? This is where I think Windows Azure (not to be too sales-y) handles the situation well.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>If you&rsquo;re using another cloud provider, by the way, that&rsquo;s fine. The concepts here are the same.</em></p>
<p>Microsoft sells an on-premises operating system, and has done for many years. We&rsquo;ve architected Windows Azure Virtual Machines, Active Directory Services, Platform-as-a-Service, and even the Hadoop and other offerings to work together &ndash; and with the tools that you use to manage them today, like System Center and PowerShell.</p>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; To the business team, I say this:<a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900178800.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;vertical-align:bottom;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900178800.jpg" alt="" width="138" height="138" /></a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Work with your IT staff on projects</strong>, even if you&rsquo;re designing the project and paying for it &ndash; the IT professionals can keep you out of danger. Most of them have made the mistakes you're going to make, and know what to do to avoid them.</li>
<li><strong>Plan for the future</strong> &ndash; &ldquo;This is just a proof-of-concept&rdquo; project becomes productions in a frighteningly quick period of time.</li>
<li><strong>Understand the cost model</strong> &ndash; a good architect can solve one problem in multiple ways, and cost is always a vector. The IT team can help you with this - they have the relationships with the vendors to consolidate and help you understand those costs.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900422772.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900422772.jpg" alt="" width="128" height="128" border="0" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To the IT team, I have this advice:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Don&rsquo;t stand in the way of the business</strong> &ndash; they&rsquo;ll just go around you. Work with them.&nbsp; Enable the business to do what they need, when they need it, and they&rsquo;ll work with you. I've seen both results when I witnessed the mainframe-to-the-PC transition, and I'm seeing it again in the PC-to-the-cloud transition. Change is inevitable - get on board or become irrelevant to the people who pay your salary.</li>
<li><strong>Learn the cloud</strong>. Talk to your vendor, get training, read up, ask questions. If this bothers the vendor, get a different one.</li>
<li><strong>Create a self-service portal</strong>. This point may be the most important one. Become your own &ldquo;Cloud&rdquo;, and your users won&rsquo;t need to go elsewhere.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll talk more about how to do this in another post.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900430906.jpg"><img style="max-width:550px;float:left;margin:5px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900430906.jpg" alt="" width="156" height="156" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>In the end, the relationship between IT teams and Business is eerily similar to a marriage &ndash; it&rsquo;s an amazing thing, it takes a lot of work to get right, and the "Consumerization of IT" is that cute person at the end of the bar.Work together or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQViYm92hg" target="_blank">one of you will soon be with somebody new</a>. <img style="max-width:550px;float:right;margin:5px;" src="http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900185031.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="160" /></p>